


If you had to choose between solving your family drama and moving over to another galaxy..?

by MeriBotti



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24325963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeriBotti/pseuds/MeriBotti
Summary: The one where Alec lives, Yasu disagrees with everything his father does, and Haru just wants to have her career in science in peace without her family falling apart every five minutes.Or... that one time I saw the trailer for ME Andromeda and really hoped BioWare would subvert the expectations a little by not killing off the parent and making the young protagonist be the leader of EverythingTM, and ended up disappointed.No idea where this is gonna go but I do plan on making this about Reyes and Yasu primarily.
Relationships: Alec Ryder & Female Ryder | Sara, Alec Ryder & Male Ryder | Scott, Cora Harper & Female Ryder | Sara, Female Ryder | Sara & Male Ryder | Scott, Male Ryder | Scott/Reyes Vidal
Kudos: 2





	If you had to choose between solving your family drama and moving over to another galaxy..?

He's standing guard with Cora and Liam while Haru and Alec go inside the alien structure. He feels the brief sting of jealousy, because Haru at least knows how to talk to dad. She can ignore their flawed relationship and focus on the mutual passion for science, and for a moment the two look like a normal father and daughter working together. Yasu pushes the feeling away quickly.Haru's not the only one who can compartmentalize. His role is to make sure the hostile aliens stay away, so he does just that.

Whatever his father does, it causes a powerful hum to run through the structure, and the giant pillar ahead stops spewing mist and electricity. The storm vanishes before his eyes and he's in awe. The clouds parted at an unnatural pace. Whatever the alien technology is, it's incredibly powerful. He glances at Haru and Alec coming out of the structure, both looking just as impressed and proud of themselves. Yasu catches his sister turning to him with a celebratory look before they all hear the ominous sound of crackling technology, and the joy washes away from their faces.

Yasu feels a wave of pressure go over him, and instinctively he puts his arm up to protect his face. The next thing he knows, dad and Haru are flying across the platform as an invisible force pushes them off, and Yasu sees the debris going their way. He flings his hand, creating his own wave of pressure with his biotics to stop the crates from hitting Haru. He can't run to catch her when she falls because there's a blue cloud and and an alien structure in his way. Cora drags him aside, having already found a way down to where Alec and Haru fell. He wastes no time, dropping down from the platform while ignoring Liam's shocked protest. He cushions his fall by altering the gravity around him. It's sloppy, and he ends up stumbling as he hits the ground. He sprints to where he sees Haru curled on her side. The dirt scrapes his armor plates as he kneels down to see her face. She's awake and choking, her helmet is cracked and there's a tiny triangle shaped piece missing. He can use his omnitool to laser the cracks and 3d print the missing piece shut, so he does. When he's done he sits on his knees while Haru takes in deep breaths.

"How much damage do you think breathing the poison air twice today did to my lungs," she eventually asks with a relieved smile.

"I'd worry more about all the braincells you lost from asphyxiation," he smiles back and tackles her in a hug. It's uncomfortable, armour pieces digging into each other. The sweat under his skinsuit is getting nasty as well. He wants to bury his nose in Haru's hair and smell the familiar scent of flowery shampoo but the helmet is in the way.

Cora jogs to them with a limping Alec keeping up.

"Shuttle will be here in 4 minutes, both of you ok?" Alec keeps up a professional demeanor, but they can all tell he's worried. Of course he is. But Alec has a hard time letting such emotions show, and Yasu has a hard time letting such emotions in.

Cora starts looking around in case hostiles show up while Alec puts one hand on Haru's shoulder and another on Yasu's.

"We're fine," Haru reassures him. They both start to get up, which is when Yasu feels a sting so bad in his spine it makes him cry out and fall back on his knees. The pain radiates from the arch of his back up until his head feels like it's splitting open. He's distantly aware of hands touching him, keeping him still, and Haru's worried questions and dad's decisive tone. It's hard to focus on anything but the pain. He makes out 'alien', 'implant' and 'prepare for surgery'. Somewhere along the line he loses consciousness, but the pain remains.

* * *

She doesn't let go of Yasu until he's being carted off to Hyperion's medbay and dad physically stops her from getting any further. He follows Lexi to the surgery, and Haru would question that but she's too worried about Yasu. Dad had scanned him with SAM when he'd started writhing in pain on habitat 7, and the ai had said something about invasive alien technology being present in Yasu's body. SAM had lost the connection to his implant quickly. The whole thing had been terrifying. One moment everything was fine and seconds later her brother was screaming like he was dying, and no one had any idea what was wrong.

She played back the event in her head while waiting around on one of the chairs in the general area of the medbay. Dad had been the first one to snap out of the shock, of course, and in a firm voice told her to hold Yasu still. He had been convulsing as though it was a seizure, and she'd wondered if he could bite his tongue or break his own teeth, but according to SAM it wasn't one. Just a reaction to nerves being pulled and damaged. She wondered what 'invasive alien technology' meant. When had it attached to him?

Her brooding was interrupted by Cora's approach.

"I've given Dunn a preliminary report of the mission. The Hyperion will stay here until further instructions can be given." Cora glanced to the direction of the door, where a red 'surgery' light was glowing above it.

Haru nodded but didn't otherwise acknowledge the woman. She didn't like Cora much. She didn't dislike her either. Haru was more... unsettled than anything by her. The way Cora clearly respected and admired her father in that 'he can do no wrong' way wasn't new. Back in the Milky Way she'd met plenty of dad's work associates who had similar attitudes. It was either that or extreme dislike and begrudging respect for him. Cora was on another level though. Haru could feel the desperate craving for approval practically oozing from her. At first she'd thought it was a sex thing, as horrifying as the mere implication of his father being even considered in a sexual light was, but Haru had dismissed that quickly. If it had been as simple as that dad would have noticed and not continued working with Cora, since there would have been no chance of a healthy professional relationship. So platonic it was. Maybe it was a military thing instead? Yasu might be able to give her more insight, but he was unavailable.

Cora stayed, standing awkwardly slightly away from her. Haru was about to ask her if there was something she wanted but Cora was way ahead of her.

"Your father won't let anything happen to your brother."

Oh.  _ Ooh _ . Cora was trying to reassure her. In a very clumsy way that honestly reminded Haru of dad.

"He might disagree, but dad's not the doctor here." She managed to insert some wryness to her tone. Wryness was good. Wry was the third Ryder name, right after 'sarcastic' and 'emotionally constipated'.

Cora fumbled. "He does have SAM, though. Whatever alien interference is going on with your brother's implant, that ai can figure it out."

They both fell silent.

"You know," Haru said after a while, "dad didn't even mention the Initiative, let alone that he'd actually continued the research that screwed us over enough to drive us to another galaxy in the end, until a month before the arks launched."

She kept her eyes on her hands, focusing on the hangnail on her ring-finger.

"Did he tell you that? That he kept all of this from us like a dirty little secret? Until it was late enough that we didn't have too much time to think about whether we wanted to try clearing our name in the Milky Way, once dad was gone, or if we were gonna follow him."

She let herself make a self-deprecating groan.

"Yasu wanted to stay. He kept saying he didn't care because either way he didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. But really he did know. Dad's court case just ruined his chances at that for good. He came to Andromeda because I wanted to come here. For me." She smiled to herself without any emotion behind it.

"To me, despite the circumstances this is a dream. The pinnacle of scientific exploration. I knew that I would be making the choice for the both us, but I pretended I didn't and..." she had to pause to steady her voice. "And I feel so guilty for ripping him away from home. Just so that I could have another chance at pursuing my dream while he has to-" she sighed, not bothering to continue.

Haru leaned her head in her hands. She pressed her fingers to her temples, as though she could somehow get through her skull and maybe scramble her brain enough for everything to start making sense. Exhaustion weighed her body like stones. She wasn't going to cry. She was bad at crying. She could only manage a few pathetic tears these days. She hadn't had a good cry since mom died. Haru felt, more than saw Cora hesitantly wrap her hands around her wrists and nudge them away. The woman was squatting in front of her, face leveled with Haru's.

"I'm not saying I really understand how you two felt," Cora started cautiously, "but it sounds to me like your brother wanted you to make the choice that would make you happy? I'm sure he doesn't think badly of you for doing what felt right to you, he'd be a pretty shitty brother if he did. And ultimately, it was his choice to follow you."

Haru avoided looking straight at Cora, but she could feel a slight twitch of a smile appearing on her lips. Damn pep talk was working. A little.

"It's not so simple for twins. Well, ok. There's plenty of twins who don't get along at all and are just fine separated, but we're more the we-were-once-a-single-cell-we-belong-together-so-we'll-probably-be-nextdoor-neighbours-till-we're-80 type."

Cora blinked. "You're identical," she said surprised. That tended to be the reaction.

"Yup." They had gone through this plenty by the time they were in junior high. The questions stopped bothering her a long time ago. "I guess we grew apart pretty wildly. Nurture vs nature. Or in my case, hormone blockers over nature." Haru smiled at the old joke.

"I guess so," Cora answered after a bit with her own smile. Then she stood up. "You're probably not gonna come eat with us in the mess hall if I ask you to?"

"Nope."

"So I might as well bring your dinner here."

"I'm not hungry."

"Even if you aren't you have to eat after all that biotic use."

Haru pursed her lips. She was hungry, she just felt too anxious to eat anything. But Cora was right, of course. Asari commando training and all, so Haru couldn't fool her.

"I want dessert," she eventually gave in.

"I doubt there'll be anything exciting but I'll look," Cora gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and left. So  _ maybe _ she wasn't absolutely horrible. When dad wasn't around. Haru could admit that much.

* * *

"The implant has been successfully removed." Lexi held up the thin string, which had been Yasu's SAM implant, between surgical pliers. The technology was woven in nano scale into a string, which was then attached to the brainstem. It let SAM have direct access to virtually all of the bodily functions of a person, regulating respiratory and cardiac functions, as well as having easy access to the central nervous system among other things. Lexi set the ruined implant on a platter beside the insect-like alien robot she had removed from Yasu's spine.

"Thankfully his biotic amps remain intact. Replacing those right now would get expensive," the asari noted, and Alec couldn't help but agree. They were Ellen's personal handiwork, just like Haru's. She'd designed both of them personalized amps as her final work, Haru's packing a monstrous punch and Yasu's further improving his already incredible precision. He was quite proud of his children's biotic talent.

Alec let out a sigh of relief while Lexi started finishing the operation.

SAM had done the best the ai could to track Yasu's condition without the connection to his implant, and had figured out based on physical scans that there was a tiny alien device that had somehow made its way beneath Yasu's skin, and attached itself directly to his spinal cord. They could only assume that the technology on Habitat 7 had reacted to SAM's presence, and had instinctively sought to overtake the ai manually. Yasu had likely happened to be the first target the parasite came across, and it had attempted to hack his SAM implant via his own nervous system. It was incredibly interesting technology, but worry for his child overtook scientific curiosity for now.

Alec followed Lexi to clean up while Yasu was taken to a recovery room. He made sure to take both the implant and the alien device to be preserved for later inspection.

"Thank you," he simply said. Lexi looked at him gravely and nodded. "We'll need to monitor him for a while in case of an infection, but by all estimates he'll make a full recovery." And that was an amazing medical feat, considering there had been a literal miniature robot attached to Yasu's nerves.

When he was done Alec found Haru napping in the medbay. Cora was sitting beside her, and on another chair beside them there were the remnants of someone's dinner.  _ Haru's,  _ SAM informed him. His daughter was drooling on his second-in-command's shoulder, who was admirably ignoring it.

"Sir," Cora noticed him and shook Haru's shoulder to wake her up.

"Wuh?" She frantically looked around. "Yasu?" Haru stood up.

"He's sleeping off anesthesia. He'll be alright."

"Where is he?"

_ Take the corridor to the left. _

"Thanks SAM," and with that Haru was gone, neon green hair whipping behind her. Not in the mood to talk then.

Alec turned to Cora. "Did you report to Dunn yet?"

"Yes, we're waiting for your orders." Cora got up, her posture straight and formal. "The good news is her scans have located the Nexus, so at least they seem to have made it."

"Good. There's no point in waiting around here any longer. Come on," he started heading for the door. "We're heading to the Nexus."

"About time, sir," Cora grinned.

**Author's Note:**

> Minimal proof-reading and editing, no beta we die like nonbinary queens, I'm literally just working all my various Andromeda hcs and character concepts and "fixes" into fanfic.
> 
> I love Alec Ryder and my sister Ryder is aromantic. So no romance subplot for her if you were looking for that. Just fighting with Cora about the favourite sister position, or something. Oh! And I love Cora too, there will be no Cora hate. Just Cora with abandonment issues that sometimes cause issues.
> 
> The rating will likely go up within the next few chapters, I'll probably have to add a few warnings once I get into what the hell went down while this dysfunctional family was still in the Milky Way. If you made it this far, hi. Hewo. Thank you. That's it. Bye!


End file.
